Top Five Best (and Worst) Christmas Songs

My workplace has been blasting Christmas music since the beginning of November, and for two months I’ve tried not to turn into a grump who despises Christmas music. I’ve mostly succeeded.

Listening to Christmas music so often made me realize that there are a lot of Christmas songs I could live without and some I never get tired of. Aside from all the chocolate and trinkets I bought to get myself through a nine day holiday workweek, this is a gift to myself: a top ten list of my favorite and least favorite Christmas music. Hope you enjoy.

Top Five Worst Christmas Songs

Honorable Mention: “Last Christmas”
Bluuuugggghhh. I have heard this song 39,000 times this season and all of the different covers sound exactly the same. I want to like it–its cheesy lyrics, its 80’s synth–but does it have to be such a dirge? It’s so sloooooow. Believe it or not, though, there are worse songs.

“Christmas in the Northwest”
LIKE THIS ONE. I grew up in the Northwest; stop romanticizing rainy, gray Christmases that don’t feel wintry and magical. Know what would feel wintry and magical? Snow.

“Grown-Up Christmas List”
For a song that’s supposedly “grown-up,” this one comes off trite and childish. I can’t help but think of a beauty pageant contestant: “My Christmas wish is for everyone to be friends and for no more war!” I know I’m mocking a song about things God does, in fact, want. Maybe if you’d written a better song about them, Amy, I would be on board.

“Little Drummer Boy”This list reveals how cynical I am. How many notes are in this song? Four? I’m happy for you, little made-up drummer boy, that you played your best for the baby Jesus, but I don’t think your best is worth listening to. Suck it up.

“Mary, Did You Know?”I always answer rhetorical questions and it drives people crazy. The answer to your deep, thought-provoking question is: Yes. Mary did know that her child was the Son of God.
Luke 1:30-33, 35 says:

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”…The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

So that’s the end of that discussion.

“The Christmas Shoes”Let the cynicism commence! This is one of those prepackaged tests of humanity that you are destined to fail if you dare to doubt its sincerity. I hate this “heartbreaking” story of a child trying to buy shoes for his dying mother because it’s trying to drum up superficial emotions that people call me heartless for not feeling. It’s hokey and it draws attention to itself. Despite what the lyrics say, that is not what Christmas is all about.

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She/her. 4w3. Lover of vegan cream cheese and performative angst.
Seattle-based writer currently dabbling in socialism and progressive Christianity.
I love to call out, complain, overreact, analyze, and reimagine.
This site contains the fruit of that labor.
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